


Higher Ground

by andjudar



Category: Real Person Fiction, Sebastian Stan - Fandom
Genre: Comfort, ComicCon, F/M, Hurt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 05:49:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7964878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andjudar/pseuds/andjudar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Germany - Chile - and now New York. Running away from the past, Maya might just as well her future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Higher Ground

**Author's Note:**

> This is my personal take on Sebastian Stan. I have no idea how he really is in RL!

**~ HIGHER GROUND ~**

 

The alarm went off at 6:00 as every day and Maya was already awake – as every day, staring into the darkness of the bedroom in her small apartment. Sleep was still not an easy thing to manage. But at least she was off medication and felt almost rested, if there was such a thing.

Reaching for her phone, which was charging up on the headboard, she brushed over the decorative candles.

“Shit…” she muttered when they came rolling down on her and hit her on the head. “Every fucking day the same fucking problems…” She rubbed the bridge of her nose where one of the short but heavy candles had struck her. “Those candles need to go!” As every morning, she said it out aloud to make it more real but she knew that once the bed was made and the headboard redecorated, she wouldn’t take the candles away because it just looked so good, made it comfortable, made it feel a little bit more like home.

 

Maya had done some mayor renovations to the apartment since she had taken it over 6 months ago but she thought it was still far from finished. It was cozy and she felt safe in it but it still didn’t feel exactly like home. But then again, she thought, no place had ever felt like home since she had left her parents’ house. Everything after that had just been a chaotic and agonizing rollercoaster ride…She knew that it had been within her powers to not go down that painful road, she could have chosen a different path for her but when things hadn’t gone as planned and certain “complications” had arisen, she just couldn’t do anything else but dig deeper into her hole. And she had taken everything she was made of down with her until the bitter end.

Now, 7 months after what she thought was the end of the world, she was actually doing quite well.

 

She now rubbed her forehead one more time, but the pain was welcome, it helped her take her mind off darker matters.

Once more, she reached up and blindly traced her way along the headboard until she found her phone. The dimmed light of the screen feebly illuminated the dark room when she took it off the charger and killed the alarm. Maya couldn’t suppress the deep long sigh.

‘Get up…’ she whispered to herself, another of those daily routines of hers. ‘Get up and get going…You’re in fucking New York!’ She didn’t need any more of those bleak and sad memories. And yes, she was in the city that never sleeps, the city where everything was possible. She pushed back the covers and sat up.

 

The bedroom was so small that there was no space for bedside tables, so the headboard came in handy but it was all far from perfect. She could of course have opted for a smaller bed, but that had not even been an option. Beds needed to be big!

There were no windows on this side of the apartment, so once the phone went into standby mode, the room fell into complete darkness again.

“Get the lights…” she muttered to herself. It felt almost like torture to get up. Sleep just didn’t do it was supposed to do for her, as she never woke up recovered and fresh. Every single morning felt like she had to scrape herself out of bed with a spatula. All she wanted was to lay back down, pull the covers over her head and disappear from the world.

But she just couldn’t. Every day here so far had been extraordinary, beautiful and interesting. It was just the mornings where Maya felt that the memories were overwhelming. With what seemed great effort, Maya reached to her left and reached for the switch.

 

Once the light was on over the floral design of the left wall, everything fell back together and the world didn’t look as dark and unkind anymore. Maya moved to the edge of the bed and let her feet dangle down, touching the soft shaggy rug that surrounded the bed. Then, a small furry warm body pressed against her left leg.

“Cookie…” Maya whispered and reached down to pat the cat’s back. “Such a good kittie!” Cookie wrapped herself around Maya’s foot and purred with delight. Then, all out of the sudden, the cat dug her claws into her skin and bit her big toe. With a laugh, Maya pulled herself up and out of bed. For a moment, she just stared ahead without actually seeing anything, then she covered her face with both hands to rub her eyes. It was always hard to get up in the morning. She was such a non-morning person! She would only start to be “normal” after her morning energy drink.

 

She walked the few steps over to the narrow walk-in-closet and opened the folding doors. The lights went on automatically. Maya had built the closet herself. Of course, it made the bedroom smaller but it gave her the possibility to store a lot of things out of sight since there was only one more closet in the apartment and it helped to keep the small spaces clutter-free. Her dad had helped her measure and calculate and choose the right materials. She loved her closet, there were shelves of all sizes all around, leaving a space of approximately 1 square meter to move around. But it was more than enough, since everything was at hand and organized – most of the times.

Maya was not the most organized person in the world, especially when it came to closets. Her mom had always said that if your closet was a mess, then your life must be a mess, too. Well, she was right there… Yet, she always knew where things were in the mess she called her closet and in regard to her having her life in a mess, she sure found her way out of it – and right into the next one.

 

However, living alone had helped her be much more organized than she used to be. It wasn’t that she was messy – apart from being a mess – or didn’t ever clean up, but her way of “organizing” had always been different. She didn’t have this manic obsession of organizing things by color or size, as many of her friends did, but for her, a chair almost not recognizable as such due to tons of clothes on it was as good as it got. Maximum effort. Now, since she had started to remodel this 50 m2 apartment, she had realized that the smaller the spaces got, the more organized one had to be.

She loved her apartment, even though it was small, she really did love it. It had a fabulous location and view on a quite quiet street and lots of green, it was close to work and all the “cool” places. It was simply great! And with all the effort she had put into making it even better, she kind of felt closer to the feeling that other people would call home.

 

Maya was still standing in the closet, motionless, empty. Once again, she had to pull herself out of the trancelike state but it was nothing new. Blinking away tears that had snuck into her eyes without realizing, she grabbed around to get the clothes she needed for today.

To her left, there were the hangers with pants, jeans, coats, jackets, dresses and blouses, to her right the shoes, mostly Converse, ballerina flats and ankle boots. In front of her, in slim cabinets and drawers was everything else, shirts, underwear, socks and whatever other accessories she called her own. All in all, it wasn’t much, but it was enough. She felt that she was neatly and prettily dressed every day without repeating her outfits too much – at least that’s what she thought. But then again, she had never really cared about other people thought of her.

She chose a pair of black jeans, a white blouse with grey stipes and a short knitted grey sweater together with a white bra, black panties and black socks, tucked everything under one arm and reached into a rose pink box where she kept her “jewelry”. Most of it was fake or from flea markets but right now she really liked the bohemian style of New York City many of those items represented. Every Saturday, she would go to the flea markets in Manhattan and Brooklyn, not necessarily with the intention to buy but almost every time she came back with a new item. She picked a pair of long tear-shaped turquoise earrings with silver wiring, which matched her dark green eyes nicely.

 

As she now walked out of the closet, her gaze fell onto the large children’s painting hanging over the headboard. It made her smile, yet the smile was a sad one. Too many memories…she thought. She blew a kiss towards it and walked through the open concept living room/kitchen to open the blinds. Cookie the cat followed her silently, avoiding her feet only by inches. The hardwood floor felt nicely cool to the touch.


End file.
